#34 ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’

Fairest of Them All, But Only If She Keeps Her Mouth Shut and Her House Clean

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) is Disney’s first animated feature, and it shows. A pastel fever dream of giggles, housework, and virginity-as-value, it’s less a fairy tale and more a glittering instructional video on how to smile through gendered servitude until a man with a crown kisses your corpse.

Let’s start with Snow White herself: a girl so sweet she makes saccharin look bitter. Her character arc? She runs away from her abusive stepmother, finds an unpaid domestic position with seven emotionally stunted men, cleans their filthy home, sings at woodland creatures, and waits patiently to be rescued—without ever developing a personality beyond “pleasant.” She has no wants, no flaws, no agency. She is a vessel of virtue with eyelashes.

And what does she fear? Not the forest, not the trauma of being hunted like a fox—no, she fears a messy house. Her first instinct upon discovering the dwarfs’ cottage is to roll up her puffed sleeves and start scrubbing. Snow White doesn’t just lean into the role of domestic goddess—she invents it, while whistling. The dwarfs thank her not with wages or respect, but with a place to sleep and a round of infantilized nicknames.

Let’s talk about those dwarfs. They’re a lineup of male archetypes with the emotional maturity of garden gnomes. Grumpy? Misogynist with a heart of gold. Doc? A mansplainer with no follow-through. Dopey? A grown man in a toddler’s body. But Snow White manages them all with the patience of a Victorian governess, feeding them, tucking them in, and gently reinforcing the idea that male dysfunction is charming when handled by a saintly woman.

And of course, the Evil Queen. Because God forbid there be a woman over thirty in the kingdom who wants power, beauty, or—gasp—agency. She’s painted as monstrous for caring about her appearance, for seeking immortality, for daring to take up space that Snow White could be fluttering around in. Her transformation into an ugly crone is the film’s metaphorical mic drop: Ambition ages you. Stay sweet, stay silent, or die ugly.

The prince? A mannequin with a jawline. He sings once, kisses a literal corpse, and is rewarded with a wife. Romance, in this film, is less about connection and more about possession: if she’s beautiful and unconscious, that’s good enough for marriage.

Yes, the animation was groundbreaking. Yes, the artistry is lush. But Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the founding document of Disney’s patriarchal handbook: women are decorative, goodness is passive, and your value peaks at seventeen and a half.

2 out of 5 poisoned apples
(One for the historic animation. One for the Queen’s iconic drag energy. The rest choked on the idea that a woman’s greatest act of rebellion is baking a pie and dying prettily.)